So what happens when your sophomore feature film gets nominated for six Academy Awards and walks away with two statues? If you’re Lee Daniels, you give yourself a lot of options before choosing your next post-Oscar project. With “Selma,” “The Butler,” “The Scottsboro Boys” and an ill-advised remake of Frederico Fellini‘s “Nights Of Cabiria” all kicking around on the helmer’s slate, he’s gone ahead and added yet another potential project.
Lee Daniels will develop and direct a feature film adaptation of the Pulitzer- and Steinberg Prize-winning play “Anna In The Tropics” by Nilo Cruz. Inspired by Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina,” the story takes place in the cigar industry in 1920s Tampa and “centers on a family of cigar rollers whose lives are changed by the power of literature.”
Cruz will meet with Daniels in January to begin work on the project and he seems positively stoked about it saying, “I loved his use of fantasy and quotidian life in Precious. It was a wonderful combination. I think my piece also deals with similar level of reality.” We’re sure that the term “reality” is being used quite flexibly here.
Of course, there’s no word yet on if this will be Daniels next official project and it seems more likely he’ll get it moving and see if it ends up in a place that he likes before directing.
A fantastic play – not sure about mr jons rant but spirited nonetheless
God, I hate that play. I remember seeing it before it hit Broadway years ago and just being blown away by how insultingly dumb the dialogue was. Nothing but truly ridiculous flowery metaphors that don\’t make sense either logically or in the context of the characters.
I don\’t remember the expression exactly, but a scene in which a rape victim compares her experience to \”a bicycle who has lost the boy who rode it\” or something equally inane almost made me laugh out loud.
This is why you don\’t give Pulitzers to plays that have yet to be produced.